The degree of mutation of “Omicron” is high; the infection has 50 mutations, 30 of which refer to spike protein. The Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan stated during the press conference.

The Minister notes that restrictions will be applied to citizens arriving from African countries, “Following the WTO reports, we plan to impose some restrictive measures on citizens of these countries, until the end of the day we will have a new set of clear restrictions.”

Citizens of the mentioned countries will be temporarily banned from entering the Republic of Armenia:

Republic of South Africa,

Republic of Botswana,

Kingdom of Lesotho,

Republic of Namibia,

Republic of Mozambique,

Madagascar,

Republic of Tanzania.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet confirmed that the disease develops more severely when infected with the Omicron strain than with other strains of the coronavirus. This is said in a statement issued by the WTO on Sunday: “Preliminary data show that there is a higher level of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to an increase in the number of people infected, not due to the fact that they are infected with the ‘Omicron’.”

The WHO also stated that at the moment there is no information that the symptoms of being infected with “Omicron” are different from the symptoms of being infected with other strains. It is not clear whether the new strain is more contagious than other variants of the coronavirus, including Delta. According to the organization, the number of people infected with coronavirus has increased in the regions of South Africa that have suffered from the “Omicron” strain. However, there are currently no definitive results from studies that clearly show that this increase was due to a new strain and not to other factors.